Towards blockchain-enabled circular closed-loop supply chain and impact of consumers’ distrust in price, product greenness sensitivity and carbon tax and subsidy

Akbarzadeh Sarabi, Mohammad, Allah Taleizadeh, Ata and Bhattacharya, Arijit (2025) Towards blockchain-enabled circular closed-loop supply chain and impact of consumers’ distrust in price, product greenness sensitivity and carbon tax and subsidy. European Journal of Operational Research. ISSN 0377-2217

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Abstract

With the increasing emphasis on environmental sustainability, both governments and consumers are more concerned than ever about the greenness of products. In this complex landscape, Supply Chains (SCs) face challenges in building trust and avoiding greenwashing accusations. Blockchain technology offers a promising solution by ensuring transparency and circularity within SCs, particularly in identifying customers for product recycling. This study pioneers the exploration of consumers' distrust in pricing and product greenness, alongside the impact of carbon policies (taxes and subsidies) within a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC). Using classical Stackelberg game theory, we develop two models that identify equilibrium decisions for SC members, focusing on pricing, green production investment, circularity, and blockchain adoption. Additionally, we propose an evolutionary game theory model to find the optimal government policies and identify the long-term behaviour of the CLSC and government in two heterogeneous populations. Our findings reveal that if the retailer's share of blockchain costs falls below a certain threshold, blockchain adoption becomes less profitable than exclusive investment in green production. A higher (lower) subsidy rate benefits (harms) the retailer but disadvantages (benefits) the collector. Blockchain adoption is generally more profitable for manufacturers and retailers, though less so for collectors, and it also drives greater investment in green production. While subsidies encourage blockchain adoption, they are not a sustainable long-term strategy for governments. Ultimately, the evolutionarily stable strategy for SCs involves a balanced investment in both green production and blockchain or green production alone, depending on market characteristics and cost-sharing structures.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	game theory,blockchain technology,circular supply chain,evolutionary stable strategy,data transparency technology,sdg 9 - industry, innovation, and infrastructure,4* ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/industry_innovation_and_infrastructure
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Norwich Business School
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Innovation, Technology and Operations Management
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	30 Jun 2025 11:30
Last Modified:	30 Jun 2025 13:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/99769
DOI:	10.1016/j.ejor.2025.06.030

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